Justin Bieber has entered that state of online existence where everything that he does becomes a potential source for outrage. Recently when he toured the Anne Frank Museum in Holland, he wrote the following in the guest book: "Truly inspiring to be able to come here. Anne was a great girl. Hopefully she would have been a belieber." The museum refused to attack the star, but made the not incorrect comment that his note "wasn't very sensible." Needless to say, the required dollop of phony Internet rage poured out on the young singer's head. What did these commenters expect from Bieber? That he would summarize pithily the cost of the Holocaust on ordinary human lives and convey the horror in the guest book? He is a non-threatening boy singer. When he sees a teenage girl, the first — possibly the only — question that he asks himself is "is this girl a fan?" Why would it be any different when he sees a teenage girl who died in Bergen-Belsen?

What the haters failed to recognize is that Anne Frank makes everyone look absurd. What struggle of contemporary life doesn't look ridiculous when compared to the tragedy of a precocious girl, on the cusp of life, being thrown into the machinery of mass death? Sholom Auslander's hilarious Hope: A Tragedy was largely about the unbearable sense of personal absurdity her story creates in its hearers. Anne Frank is alive in the attic, taking questions, but nobody really wants to hear what she has to say. It's too embarrassing. As she says in the novel, "Me, I'm the sufferer. I'm the dead girl. I'm Miss Holocaust, 1945. The prize is a crown of thorns and eternal victimhood. Jesus was a Jew, Mr. Kugel, but I'm the Jewish Jesus."

I think the online haters missed the darker, more disturbing point of Justin Bieber's note. He was pondering questions that have consumed many other artists: Would Anne Frank have approved of me? Would Anne Frank have loved me? Those are the questions behind one of my favorite love songs of all time, and one of the most influential songs ever, "Holland 1945" off In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel, which was also inspired by a visit to the Anne Frank Museum. Listen to the whole thing before you judge Justin Bieber: